PLP – the experience

We’ve just spent the last week or so summing up our PLP(Powerful Learning Practice) experience as a culminating video for presentation for an international audience, who may want to visit the PLP site and see for themselves what is possible when a team of people commit themselves to making change within their school.

I can’t speak for everyone on the team, but for me the experience has been a positive one. I make a comment in our video where I say that I felt like an evangelist in our school prior to PLP, trying to convince others of the need for adoption of new ideas. That was a pretty difficult space to habitat. People have a tendancy to steer clear of evangelists; they represent a maniacal fervour that others find off putting. PLP gave a team of teachers a reason to be involved and a reason to change.

From a team perspective, we had members who made huge gains and members who made smaller gains. The sheer fact that our school community has been exposed to and understands to some extent what Wikis and Nings are is monumental in my opinion. We’ve even had Ning discussed at a school assembly and our school publications have included articles that reference the new technologies that have been adopted in our school curriculum. We still have work to do but we are further than we were last year and there are more of us willing to explore what is possible.

Pretty darn good outcome in my opinion.

From a personal perspective I have made huge gains. I am linked to a community of educators who have supported me, taught me, learnt from me and who have laughed with me. They come from Australia and the United States and I am sure that the connections we have made will continue. I have had my opinions about the power of learning communities reinforced; we are stronger when there are many of us working together.

Judge for yourself. Here is Toorak College’s Adventures in Wonderland.

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Jenny Luca writes about…

the important job that is teaching, and how to incorporate new technologies into our practice. Considering she is a Teacher-Librarian, there's a fair bit of discussion about libraries here as well. She tries to inject a bit of humour into the mix every now and then too. She thinks it's important.

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Text projections by public artist Martin Firrell onto the dome of St Paul's Cathedral, London. Commissioned by Dean and Chapter to mark the 300th anniversary of the topping out of Sir Christopher Wren's cathedral building. Titled 'The Question Mark Inside' the artwork presented a stream of answers to the question, what makes life meaningful and purposeful?